Whats your WORST commission experiances ?

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

My brain hurts.

It's an anti-terrorism thing...Homeland Security and all that. Terrorists don't put their home addresses, see. So if you don't then you must be one. I'm surprised they didn't have the bomb squad blow the thing up! 

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

I could go on and on about sculpting commissions (as a customer).  

edit: let me amend that to include moulding, casting, painting.

I have a pretty large lead pile and every now and then a friend will see something "cool" that I haven't done anything with [yet] and he'll want to paint it. Sometimes I am smart enough to decline but sometimes I say OK. Typically what happens is that after it's painted the ownership somehow changes hands - or he thinks it does, or thinks it should (he painted it after all!) Never mind that I never sold the piece to anybody and was quite happy to have it on the pile "for later". Other times I have had to rescue stuff from peoples clutches. After 12-odd years I recovered some pre-slotta Slann from a friend who had "wanted to paint them". The rest of the army had long ago been painted and sold on (for 1400US). 

[tin shed gamer]

Ah because noone would give a false address how would you get your dodgy parcel back if the post office can't deliver it.
As for the pillaging of your lead pile.It is the curse of all lead piles.
The trick is to simply to say when someone hints is"Well I'm sure one will turn up on Ebay sooner or later,and then we can compare paint job's when I've painted mine."
Ignore the disbelief/ silence,and move on to another topic without a second thought.
I never take hints!There just guilt trips from the sneaky! Its your collection( you are not a horder.you a social historian with a private museum which has limited public access.As such you do not out source your storage to similar museums,and all items in your collections would not travel well so they must sadly remain in your care,)

[Dr Mathias]

That post by alizardincrimson is too funny

Someone beat me to the John Ruskin comment 

Can't say I've had any bad commissions, other than stuff that was boring as hell to paint (WW2 Americans), or shit castings (Perry samurai I'm looking at you).

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

Excellent advice!

Me, a hoarder? No way...even if some parts of the house do somewhat resemble the houses shown on the show "Hoarders". 

Ah because noone would give a false address how would you get your dodgy parcel back if the post office can't deliver it.
As for the pillaging of your lead pile.It is the curse of all lead piles.
The trick is to simply to say when someone hints is"Well I'm sure one will turn up on Ebay sooner or later,and then we can compare paint job's when I've painted mine."
Ignore the disbelief/ silence,and move on to another topic without a second thought.
I never take hints!There just guilt trips from the sneaky! Its your collection( you are not a horder.you a social historian with a private museum which has limited public access.As such you do not out source your storage to similar museums,and all items in your collections would not travel well so they must sadly remain in your care,)

[6milPhil]

... and every now and then a friend will see something "cool" that I haven't done anything with [yet] and he'll want to paint it.

How unpleasant. I have a variant on this tale but it involves my son the boy Slug. Mini's often become unfindable only to reappear fully painted. One which cut deep was when I got a set of Studio Mini's with the bonus George A. Romero figure, I set about the set leaving the Romero until last, and before I'd varnished those Georgie Boy appeared fully painted. It was a great pj too, lumberjack shirt and all, and it's not like I can get miffed at Slug showing an interest either. A weary resignation is all I can manage. 

[tin shed gamer]

 :)I know that feeling,kids eyeing up your worldly goods while you've still got a tight grip on the perch.
"One day all this will be yours! until then begger off "

[6milPhil]

 

[jamii]

I was never ripped off, but I did have several bulk shipments of minis cast into metal intercepted by the US customs. I had some pattern moulds made by a shop in England. When the metal minis were shipped to me they didn't arrive on time. I contacted the guy, we both thought the package was lost.

Turns out a month later (yes, a MONTH) a month later a special delivery came outside of the regular postal guys route. I finally found out it was because of the high lead content (they were literally packed in tightly) they couldn't x-ray it, and so it was red flagged, opened and inspected.

Well, the really bad news, is one week before it finally arrived, the shop put together another box and shipped it. That one also got intercepted. When he found out, that they wernt lost, but intercepted, he wasn't happy. 
Not only that, a lot of them arrived broken and damaged. 

that's my horror story.

But the good news, is I found another spin-casting shop here on the west coast in Southern California, close by. Within driving distance if need be. We're in touch. 

[The Gray Ghost]

I tied to commission a range of Moro War figures in the late {Edit} mid? 90s from a place in Canada for 65US for sculpting and casting for each figure and I was to be paid in cast figures with all rights going to the company. I had signed on and paid for a ten figure line, after about the fourth figure the company was sold and despite assurances the new owner would honor the agreement, they were both stand up guys in the hobby, the new owner wanted me to pay allover again and the old owner washed his hands of it.

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

$65 per figure is pretty cheap. Must be 15mm, I guess? Too bad they jerked you around like that.

[The Gray Ghost]

25mm, I did manage to get a bunch of the first four figures but it has made me never commission anything sense.

the one on the far right with the kriss is/was a Pass of the North? that I wanted mine scaled to.
I was paid with 1-4 and a limited number of the 5th figure.
Originally going do 10 Moros, then Moro Constabulary  then American Moro War figures.

[Too Bo Coo]

Just be happy you're not this guy....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_869677429&feature=iv&src_vid=_06d7wMO4Cw&v=3Po381lu1ds